Joe McHugh on bowing out: Taking 'a stand', social media's ills and the cúpla focal

Joe McHugh can still recall the moment, in an office at Leinster House, when Enda Kenny dropped a bombshell.

The then Taoiseach, Kenny appointed McHugh as the Minister of State with responsibility of Gaeltacht Affairs.

McHugh was, at best, rusty with the native language.

“I remember going into the office so excited, but when Enda hands me the job, when he said “Gaeltacht”, it was as if the whole world collapsed in front of me,” Deputy McHugh, who will step away after 25 years of political life, tells Donegal Live.

“That night, I remember thinking before I went to bed: ‘What the fuck am I doing here?’ I thought about ringing Enda again because I thought it was pointless and it was like: ‘I’ll be killed out there’.”

Instead of quitting, McHugh booked himself in, at Kenny’s suggestion, for an Irish language refresher course at Oideas Gael, the Irish language centre in Glencolmcille.

On November 15, McHugh will return to Oideas Gael to launch a new book on his experience, Beidh Tú Alright - An Irish Language Journey.

“It’s going into the detail of the appointment, the abuse and the criticism,” McHugh says.

“I couldn’t speak Irish at the time. I talk about how I learned the language and there are tips there. I have written it in English as the people not totally proficient in Irish are my reach, my audience.

“I am fluent now in that I can hold conversations, do interviews on the radio, although I’m not as fluent as someone born and reared in the Gaeltacht.

“That was difficult at the time, but I don’t highlight it as a difficulty. Rather, it was transformative for me and it may have helped my decision to leave politics. That part of my life actually gave me extra self confidence.”

Deputy McHugh, a former Minister for Education, will leave the political stage at this next general election having confirmed his intention as far back as 2022, since which time he has lost the Fine Gael party whip after taking a stand on a vote regarding the defective concrete blocks redress scheme.

McHugh was 28 years old when he was elected as a county councillor in June 1999. He was one of 18 new faces to take their seats in Lifford. Frequenting pubs and discos, he would regularly encounter disgruntled constituents.

The world of then is incomparable to 25 years on.

“Now, the social media stuff is off the charts,” he says. “At the end up, I haven’t looked at it, bar LinkedIn. At least you can have a conversation there. Once I leave politics, I won’t touch the other social media.

“When I first got a computer in the late 1990s, there was a website politics.ie and that was the first time I saw a comment from an anonymous source. I remember there was one particular comment where someone said: “I met Joe McHugh and I wasn’t too impressed with what he had to say.” That has stuck with me for over 25 years. That was my first experience of an anonymous comment and it has gone to a whole new level now. I remember at one stage, there was just pure vitriol.”

McHugh, who was a senator since 2002, topped the poll in the old Donegal North East constituency in 2007, usurping sitting Fianna Fáil Deputy Cecelia Keaveney. McHugh polled 8,711 first preference votes, getting in alongside Dr James McDaid and Niall Blaney, both of whom were under the Fianna Fáil banner.

Deputy Joe McHugh and his wife, former Deputy Olwyn Enright

The night of the count in 2007, just after his election, someone reminded him: “McHugh, your work starts tomorrow morning.”

McHugh has held his seat in Dáil Éireann ever since ’07.

Four years later in 2011, Fine Gael became the largest party in the Dáil for the first time.

“The country was on its knees and the time and the tone changed big time,” McHugh says. “We had been in opposition before 2011 and the same vitriol doesn’t come when you’re in opposition.

“We were only in government for about two weeks and felt the full wrath of that anger. Suddenly, we were the focus of the attention. People were angry. There was something like 90,000 young people who left for Australia, Canada or wherever. I can understand why people were angry, but it was like: ‘I didn’t do the damage’.”

A former teacher at Loreto Secondary School in Letterkenny, when it was still known as Loreto Convent, McHugh - who is married to former TD Olwyn Enright - was appointed as the Minister for Education by then Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in late 2018.

“My advice to anyone new coming in is to not look at my manuscript,” he says. “For a few years, my average week would have encroached on 80 hours. To be honest, it’s no advertisement at all. Calling to houses and drinking tea or meetings in the back of pubs was the norm in my time, but the world has changed and a lot can be done virtually now.

“I’d have been away from the house from 7 or 8 o’clock on a Monday. Particularly when I was the Minister, I wasn’t home until maybe midnight and I was up again at 4 or 5am to head for a pre-Cabinet meeting in Dublin. From that, I wasn’t home until late on a Thursday night; maybe say hello to the kids, maybe not.

 “A Dublin politician, be they a senator, a TD, a minister or even the Taoiseach, will go to their own bed, wake up in their own house and put on their own kettle in the morning. There is no question it’s hard work from rural Ireland.”

Joe McHugh speaks to the media following an election

The stay-at-home regulations during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 gave McHugh eyes to a whole new world.

“Covid-19 was so hard for so many, but I felt as if I was one of the lucky ones being home and with my family,” he says. “That was a world that I wasn’t aware of. When the pandemic was over, I promised myself to keep doing or keep trying to do stuff like that. I wanted to be with my family and have a more balanced life.”

McHugh was not appointed to the Government in 2020, declining a junior ministry.

Instead, he chaired the Committee on European Union Affairs and was also in a role that saw him chair meetings of the various chairs.

He resigned the Fine Gael party whip and lost those remunerated positions in July 2022 when he voted against the Government in a vote regarding the defective concrete blocks scheme. At the time, McHugh said insufficient time went into debating the bill, which fell short “for too many people”.

“I don’t know if it achieved anything, but sometimes you have to take a stand,” he says now. “When I did that, it took away power as I wasn’t part of the fold. For me, it was a question of taking a stand for people going through difficulty and trauma - and it’s intergenerational trauma that will still be here for years.”

Since then, McHugh has been acting as an independent TD.

“Being in a party, you do have strength in numbers,” he says. “You have access to Ministers and a chance to influence change. When the parliamentary party meets, that’s your opportunity to raise pertinent issues, but I haven’t attended those meetings since. That is a forum with the Taoiseach and all the ministers and you make your point. Not being there has taken my voice away a bit.”

Although McHugh is outside of the Fine Gael tent now on the horizon of another general election, he says he would be happy to assist John McNuty and Nikki Bradley who are running in the Donegal constituency. The battle for the party to retain its seat in the county will be intense.

“I am still a Fine Gael member,” McHugh points out.

“If you look at recent elections, sitting TDs have lost their seats, from Pat ‘The Cope’ (Gallagher) last time, Pádraig Mac Lochlainn in 2016, Mary Coughlan in 2011 and Cecelia Keaveney in 2007; The Donegal electorate has a habit of sending a message to Dublin.”

Joe McHugh celebrates at an election

McHugh confirmed his intention to step away in May 2022. He has had over two years to prepare for the time.

He is on the closing lap of a Masters in Positive Health Coaching, due to be finished in the middle of next year. Thereafter, he’ll look at a new career in coaching and executive help, examining peoples’ stress, burn-out, well-being and, essentially ensuring that they can get better family time and general lifestyle.

“The pressure is gone now that I’m not out competing for votes and percentages,” he says. “I would do it all again. It has been a massive privilege to be a representative of Donegal and to go to Dublin and basically fly the flag. You learn a lesson quickly that you can’t keep all the people happy all the time.

“I am not that fond of rollercoasters, but there is an adrenaline rush in politics. If I was running at the end of November, I would be energised and my cortisone levels would be on peak and I’d be living on that rush.

“While social media is bad, I always say that if I’m able to walk the main streets of Carrigart and Letterkenny then it’s not too bad. I have never been afraid of getting out there and meeting people during very difficult times.

“When I made my mind up, I was out of that mode of campaigning for the first time since 1999 and it does feel like a weight has been lifted. You get a chance to concentrate on the important stuff.”